


In black and white

by Entomancy



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Blood, Gen, Injury, Needles, Transformation, Yoglabs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1216633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entomancy/pseuds/Entomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are so many ways for accidents to happen in Yoglabs; some with more serious outcomes than others.  How Panda came to be - well - *Panda*.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In black and white

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Yoglabs headcanons](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/37063) by Cerebrobullet. 



The first time he awoke there was shouting. Voices, familiar voices, raised shrill in panic. Maybe there was something he should be doing? Everything was strangely _distant_ , somehow, with all the blur of movement and frantic waving – panicked hands, grabbing onto his arms, pulling him this way and that and there was the gleam of silvered metal – everything seemed to be happening to someone else, only tangentially connected to himself. Even as faces swam in front of his own, twisting and shouting, it was all so far away.

The world went dark, and he barely noticed.

_Don’t worry about that._

-

The second time he awoke there were lights. Harsh-white flickers of overhead brightness, strobing past above him as he hurtled forwards, feet first. It took a while before he realised he must be lying down, that the pressure at his back must be a trolley of some kind. Dark figures loomed over him – wide eyes, goggled eyes, gleaming cyborg eyes of the general Labs staff diversity – and their owners spoke quickly. They said deliberate, firm things, questions and statements, but none of the words caught, skipping and slipping across his mind like oiled things, never staying still.

More questions. More demands.

_An accident._

_Can you hear me?_

_There’s been an accident._

_Can you understan - ?_

He should react. It was all about him, he was fairly sure – all this sudden urgency, that yet seemed so intangible in the fuzz of his actual thoughts.

He should react. He _should._

-

The third time he awoke there was pain. The feel of it bit down into his scattered awareness, drawing him back from the dispersed mess which had almost ousted his mind. He blinked. The pain came again – resolved, again – as a wave of it rippled down his skin, a hot-sharp itch that seemed to scrape along under his surface, sparking prickles of angry sensation under each hair.

He forced his eyes open. Vision was surprisingly difficult, and it took a good few moments of blinking before he could make out much more than a wavering blur. He was lying down, his own fingers in front of his face, curled in on themselves against the flat cold floor. There were little cuts in his palm, where his torn nails had bitten into the flesh.

His skin was red, inflamed like a burn, but there was no edge to it, an all-over angry crimson that seemed to have no actual source. He could see it continuing down under his sleeve, feel the scrape and catch of it under the rest of his torn clothes, and a frown pinched in on his sore brow. This wasn’t… normal.

He didn’t usually – didn’t usually _hurt_. Usually. Usually, which was when he was… when he…?

The world was already swimming again, swirling blackened spots at the edges of his fading sight, as the tiniest note of horror began to spark. He couldn’t _remember_.

-

The fourth time he awoke, he wasn’t alone.

Consciousness poured back in, icy but unsoothing against the inflamed mess of his thoughts and he couldn’t hold back a hiss of pain. The twitch of it sent a spasm down him, curling his fingers, jerking his legs, and this time there was a reply.

“Well, you look like hell,” the voice sounded quite amused by this, although it was a little muffled. “And I’d know.”

After a few tries, he managed to open his eyes, inching the lids apart past the unpleasant crust that stuck them together. The brightness hit like a punch, prompting a new gasp as paired bursts of new pain erupted at his temples, and he swung his hands up to block the invading light. All that served to do was hurt even more; his skin stretched and crackled, hot and dry and so very, very _itchy_ , across every inch. He gasped again and peered at his fingers, blinking rapidly.

The skin was still red-raw, but it took another few moments for him to process what he was seeing. The scalded flesh was… _hairy_. Not that he’d ever been entirely bare, but the coating of short, bristly darkness was weirdly uniform even on the underside, and he stared at it stupidly.

_What the hell?_

Ignoring the all-over ache – he felt exhausted, drained like he was in the grip of a _really_ bad flu – he gingerly traced one fingertip down his shaking hand, dipping under the cuff of his crumpled labcoat. Everything was the same. His movements became more frantic, grasping at his neck, at his face – and he yelped again, as even that light pressure sent a burst of agony through his jaw, where there was an unpleasant _crunch_ of something underlying, and he yanked his hand away.

Same. Same everywhere.

“Wh… what?” he managed, and his voice was a rasp, dry like he hadn’t used it for months, and he coughed hard.

There was another sound, a chuckle, and he looked round to meet a reddened stare, mere inches from his face. If he had had the energy, he would have jerked away, but instead he just gawped. There was a thick sheet of glass next to him – going up to the ceiling, split only by a vent, and extending all the way to the rest of the metal walls – and on the other side was another small room. It was sparsely furnished (and what there was seemed to be bolted down), and the far wall also seemed to be made of glass, but the main thing that drew his attention was the man staring back at him.

He was pale, with lank blonde hair hanging down past his ears, and an unkept tuft of beard petering out across his broad chin. He was wearing a labcoat too, but it was tattered in most places, especially at his rolled-back sleeves. The strange man was also lying down, propped on his elbows and subjecting him to a bloodshot, grey-eyed gaze that made him recoil a little, even behind the glass of his own cell.

_Cell. Why am I in a cell?_

“I said,” the man repeated, still cheerfully. “You look pretty screwed up.”

“I don’t – ” he managed in reply, squinting across at his neighbour, and blinked. “Who are…?”

“Lalnable.” The man dipped forward over his hands in a nod, and raised an eyebrow. “You, furboy?”

He chose to ignore that, and tried to pull his fragmenting attention back into line.

“Where are we? Why are you here? Why am _I?_ ” He knew his voice was cracking, but the break was weirdly heavy, further back in his throat than he expected. The man – Lalnable? If that was even a name – jerked one hand up, sweeping it round in a particularly sarcastic gesture.

“Observation.” He hunched forward a little further, shadows pooling oddly around his eyes as he moved. “We’re being _watched_.”

“What?” He blinked again, and this time even that managed to hurt. Panic was starting to tighten in his gut, and he tried to call up the calmly-reassuring repetition of the standard employee manual.

_'Occasional memory modification is a standard component of Yoglabs security procedures. Some disconcertion may occur. This will be temporary, until alterations to the core lobes are processed. Some discomfort is a common side effect, but harmless.'_

_Don’t worry about that._

It wasn’t as helpful as he remembered it. _If_ he remembered it.

“But that doesn’t – ” he started again, stopped, and frowned. “Who _are_ you?”

Lalnable grinned. It wasn’t a pleasant expression – the smile was too wide, pulling strangely at the edges of his mouth as his lips twisted around the movement, a little too mobile. He sat up further and leaned forward, pressing his forehead and splayed fingertips into the glass so hard that they blanched.

“Me? I’m the kind of mistake that comes back to _bite_ you,” he said, and laughed. The sound didn’t stop, the initial giggle bubbling up this throat and dragging harsher cackles with it. He swung around abruptly, bracing back against the glass as the laughter jolted forth, wracking him like spasm.

Then it stopped. Lalnable slumped down a little further, sliding his palms out across the smooth floor either side, and patted the ground.

“Heh. Funny.”

On his own side of the glass, he realised he had been holding his breath, and forced himself to relax. The wall between them was _very_ strong; he knew that. His gaze tracked back down his arm, where the thickening hair still rubbed against his cuffs, and he frowned. The probable-nutter in the next room was the least of his concerns, really.

There was a faint thud, as Lalnable pressed his head back against the glass and craned round, peering back at him.

“Seriously though, you look like hell. What they got you on?”

“I don’t – " he started, unsure of how exactly he was going to continue. ‘Don’t have to tell you?’ ‘Don’t really know?’’

 _Don’t worry about that_.

“– don’t remember,” he finished, lamely. Lalnable smirked.

“Figures. I guess – ”

But he couldn’t hear him. The ringing in his ears was rising, the boiling-twitch of _something_ surging anew down his limbs, and he struggled for air through his closing throat. Fear bloomed again, echoed in the sharp pains in his face, the hot prickles across his skin, and suddenly he was _burning_  –

-

The fifth time he awoke, he was screaming.

Agony crackled through him like a storm, twitching him back and forth across the sweat-slicked floor, and with every tense and shiver his muscles howled – tearing, shaking against his bones – and even his _teeth_ hurt, jostling violently in his jaw, as what little breath he retained vanished into the cries.

In a moment of clarity he saw his hands – black-furred with no sign of the angry skin beneath – felt the paler pads of his fingertips drag against the floor, the scrape of claw tips on the metal. Felt his shoulders moving, fissures deepening across the bones as they twisted, shifted, changed.

_There’s been an accident._

_Can you hear me?_

More pain, pain in his head; something _else_ though, something different. Alien. Thing. In his head, dug into him so deeply. It had been there before but he hadn’t noticed in so long, had lost the feel of it beneath the shroud of normality, but now there was the taste of metal in his mind – which wasn’t possible, he knew that, but he could _feel_ it nonetheless.

_Standard issue chip. Security, you know how it is. You've nothing to fear if you've nothing to hide._

The reforming burn of him pushed against the intrusion and he knew he was screaming, as the pain peaked there, and he felt something _give_ –

-

The sixth time he awoke – really awoke, not the half-conscious fading, cut about with pain – it was different. He stared up at the grey ceiling above, and blinked slowly. Breathing slowly.

It didn’t hurt now. He _ached_ , sure, and there was a weird sense of fading dysphoria curled around him, but the pain had gone. All of his mental ideas of where _he_ was – how far away his hands were, how his limbs moved – seemed _off_ ; even before he drew together enough courage to hold his shaking hand up to his face, and stare at the thick, dark fingers in front of him. The fur layer had closed over entirely now, and he traced trembling fingers down his own body, feeling the slight change in texture at his chest, seeing the whiteness that wavered at the edges of his vision.

There was a tender area at the back of his head, and his fingers came back damp from the touch, although there seemed nothing worse than torn tissue there now.

He inched round, blinking as he searched the fluid mess that was smeared out in flailing patterns across the floor beneath him. His gaze finally landed on a shape, flung up against the edge of the glass wall; the metal-gleam of circuit flashed under the bloody sheath, and he recoiled.

There was a laugh, loud and unabashed, and he looked up sharply.

Lalnable was sitting on the bed in his own cell, fingers laced together between his knees, and his bloodshot stare flicked between him and the gory trails with obvious amusement.

“Pretty good, panda-boy,” he said, a strange approval in his voice as he reached up to rub viciously at the back of his own head. “Took _ages_ to get mine out. Ran almost right outa forks in the end.”

“What’s _happening_ to me?” he growled back, and it _was_ a growl, he realised – a deep, guttural sound that rolled out of his throat with unexpected ease, and he clapped his hand over his mouth. Fur tickled against his lips, and he realised with horror he could feel a very different arrangement of _much larger_ teeth behind them.

The glass wasn’t reflective, but he tried to angle himself anyway, try and _see_ something. Lalnable watched him, head tilted to one side.

“You really don’t know?” he asked. He sounded thoughtful, and stood up when he shook his head in reply. The man sauntered over to the glass and made a great show of looking him up and down as he stood up, unwilling to let the lank figure stand over him so completely. Unless he was going mad – which was _very_ possible – he seemed to be shorter now. Lalnable’s gaze tracked down to the bloody smears on the floor, and he very visibly licked his lips.

“It was _nasty_ , wasn’t it?” he asked, quietly, and there was an edge to that voice that sent the new hackles rising across his shoulders. Lalnable stepped forwards, very suddenly, and swung his hands hard against the glass, as if making a frame for his face between his opened fingers.

“Take a good look,” he muttered, and his eyes flashed dangerously. “Because it looks to me like you’re nearly done; they’ll be coming for you soon enough.”

The man’s wide gaze was almost hypnotic, and there was something burning in that cracked-slate stare – but more importantly, stepping forward, he could see _himself_ there. Twin, tiny reflections stared back, his own eyes in an alien face; a muzzled visage in bloodstained monochrome, huge dark circles smeared around his eyes like a careless child’s painting, his shock-parted lips pulled back over white-sharp teeth that jutted down viciously at the edges.

_There’s been an accident._

_If that's what it was._

He jerked back, gasping at breath that barely came as the reality of it all hammered down hard. It was impossible, sure, but when had _that_ ever been a concern here? His gaze dragged back, breaking Lalnable’s stare, and he gawked at his own arms. Stared at not just the fur, but at the thickened ropes of muscle that were now slung out underneath. Stared at the claws.

He was exhausted, true, and those muscles shivered as he moved, but they were _there_.

Lalnable chuckled darkly as he stepped away, turning back towards his own bed.

“You gotta know what you got coming before _they_ do,” he muttered and glanced back, drawing the tip of his tongue slowly across his upper lip as he did so, as if relishing the thought.  Suddenly his eyes were full of knives. “Know what I mean, panda-boy?”

-

The seventh time he awoke – he escaped.

There had been lights again, breaking open his rough cocoon of sleep. Then shouting, and cold metal on his wrists. He had been hauled up, bound, and dragged along, as voices once-familiar had bounced and chimed around him, their urgency transformed into a distant curiosity that rankled hard, blooming new anger under his resentment.

 _There’s been an accident_.

He didn’t remember it. He didn’t remember much, honestly, but as they poked and prodded, as faces that he had fleeting recollections of once knowing so well swam uncaringly in front of him, and as the needles came forward – he knew one thing.

He _was_ worried about this.

And he was getting out.

They hadn’t expected him to fight back; not really. The moments were blurred, half-connected like a bad film, but he remembered his own snarl, remembered the _snap_ of breaking restraints, and the birth of panic not his own. Remembered running, following part-known paths, taking the edge of shock and razor-chance of desperate luck; as shots sizzled and burst around him, as lights blew and his clawed feet scored sparks from the floor, and then he was out and he was _running_.

The world fell dark around him, the thick press of pursuing dusk hot on his heels as he plunged away into the night, leaving the harsh light and the shouting far behind him. He ran until he couldn’t even stumble, until the gold-red fingers of dawn began to creep down through the trees, and he toppled, utterly spent, into the wet embrace of marshy ground.

He lay there for some time, dazed beyond comprehension. His left eye throbbed, some blow he'd taken in the flight, but he couldn't draw up enough extra worry for that.

He didn’t know where he was, and wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He didn’t know a _lot_ of things, anymore.

_Some disconcertion may occur._

A faint groan rolled out over his lips – and someone answered.

“Er, hello? Anyone there?”

_Can you hear me?_

He managed to roll over, prying himself back up onto his elbows, and shivering so violently that it shook the breath from his chest. He looked up, as the bushes nearby pushed apart, and an unfamiliar face appeared in his wavering vision. Human. Pale, dark hair. Tie. Glasses, askew on his face; he adjusted them as he looked down.

No shouting this time; not even Lalnable’s strange, predatory interest. Just a very plain concern, and he felt a surge of relief at the oddly-uncomplicated sight of it.

“Hey there, you alright mate?”

At his lack of response, or violence, the new man came closer and hunkered down, if a little warily. He pushed his glasses back onto his face and offered a slightly-nervous smile.

“Y’look about as lost as I am. Bit of a bloody hazard, being out in these woods at night, am I right?” He rubbed at his arm, where a long graze was still fresh against the skin. “Skeletons all over the damn place. So – er – no offence, right, but can you like… talk?”

He nodded, and tried to find his voice.

“...hello.”

The man grinned.

“Alright, pretty good start. I’m Nilesy, and I mean, I’d say more, but you really don’t look like you’re any fuckin’ position to buy a pool. So… yeah.” He stuck out a hand, which was rather muddy, and tried another grin. “You’re…?”

That was a good question. He stared at the extended hand, his mind going blank. There was only one thing that seemed even vaguely appropriate, under the circumstances. He held out his own battered paw gingerly.

“It's… Panda, I guess.” The word felt peculiar in his mouth, but everything _did_ , at the moment. Nilesy accepted the hairy grip without additional comment, and raised an eyebrow.

“Nice t’meet you, Panda. Well, I’m just god damn lost – but how’d _you_ end up out here in the arse-end of nowhere?”

Panda shook his head ruefully.

“That’s… going to be a pretty long story.”

A howl rang out, somewhere in the distance of the surrounding forest, and Nilesy shivered.

“Right, well, that can be our on-the-road entertainment. I think I might remember where I am, from here.” He stood up, brushing mud off his trousers, or at least, smearing it in with the general malaise, and headed off further into the trees, with a companionable beckon. Not seeing much else he _could_ do, right now – Panda followed.

Anywhere was better than going back.

-


End file.
